mondar said:
The context of John 15:5 and Matthew 7:23 have no connection. Why jump from one context to another and go all over the place?
Explain please. Scripture is telling us that we can do no good without Him. You are disagreeing with that, apparently...?
mondar said:
Presume is a very good word, but I do not presume that anyone is seeking God.
According to the Bible, God is pleased with those who seek Him out. Thus, people must seek Him out. I give people the benefit of the doubt when they claim to seek God out.
mondar said:
Romans 3:11 There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God;
You should read the Psalms where that comes from. Paul is using this to refer to evil Jews who are not seeking out God, not a universal statement that no one seeks Him out, which is Calvinism avoiding a mountain of Scriptures. Other Psalms tell us that the just and righteous seek Him out. So either the bible contradicts itself or you are mis-interpreting Romans 3.
mondar said:
presume, we make presumption after assumption, we over-rule the text and say that when Jesus said that he "never" knew them; we come to the conclusion that this is an hyperbolic exaggeration and that Jesus actually did once know them and they fell away after their "inner heart and outer works is severed?"
Does this mean that no hyperbole exists in Scriptures? The bible tells us that we can do NOTHING (good) without Jesus. Is that ambiguous? Is that restrictive? It applies to Mat 7, then, unless Jesus was just kidding in John's Gospel. Now, if the person described in Mat 7 had done ANY good work, EVER in his entire life, then Christ was there, according to Scriptures.
Or do you claim that men can do good deeds without Christ??? This overturns much of Protestant theology, if so...
mondar said:
Francis, when you say that the context is not literal, but hyperbole, is this a method of picking and choosing which texts you want to believe?
I am not about to chop off my arm to keep from doing evil, as Christ appears to say in this same section of the Bible. Nor do I feel the call to pluck out my eyes to avoid hell. My tradition says this is not literal, but a hyperbole, to show the seriousness of controlling the eyes/hands regarding sin. Since my Tradition (and common sense) does not accept "OSAS", I do not take the words of Christ literally (I NEVER knew you) in Matthew 7, either. It is exaggeration.
If we did, as I said, one would NEVER know if Jesus actually knew us! We can claim it, we can THINK we are of the elect, but who knows what the future holds - perhaps one will become a hypocrite in their religious pride (not an unthinkable for you or I) - which nullifies EVERYTHING YOU EVER DID... all of your prayers, thoughts, etc., will be judged to be worthless and Jesus never knew you! Ridiculous. As such, you don’t know if TODAY'S prayers are even heard by Christ. OSAS does the opposite of what it pretends to do...
Because logic does not allow the literal meaning, and Christ's words elsewhere verify this, we must interpret Mat 7 as a moral exaggeration, similar to hyperbole, meant to shock the hearer into proper inner movements of the heart, rather than just doing mere works of appearance to win human approval. Jesus doesn’t know such actions. If you consider the context of Mat 7, it is directed at such people.
mondar said:
If I have a dead horse, what chance is there that he will get up and plow my field? If I have a dead fish in my fish tank, do you think he will ever swim around in my fish tank again? A dead faith is meaningless, it does not produce salvation. This is why James says in the context....
Poorly-done analogy.
According to your theology, the dead horse was never alive, the dead fish was never alive – thus, you cannot EXPECT that “horse†that never existed to do any plowing. Clearly, that is not the intent in James, because the preaching presumes the ability to act as if regenerate. He EXPECTS them to do good deeds, which means HE thought they were regenerate.
mondar said:
I can tell you what I am referring to by my term. I am speaking of the nature of faith. It is not the works that accompany the faith that save, but the faith itself. But, the nature of that faith, being a regenerate faith, it will have its fruits.
The nature of faith? There are a variety of qualifiers added to faith. One can have a dead faith or a living faith. Faith is not "regenerate faith" by nature!!! Thus, the Bible adds qualifiers. This is simple English grammar.
If faith was "regenerate by nature", there would be no need to add the adjective "living" or "dead" to differentiate.
Paul also denies this in 1 Cor 13:2-3. Faith to move mountains (a heck of a lot of faith) is worthless, if it does not have something else. Thus, faith alone is dead, worthless and is not "regenerate by nature".
mondar said:
You are correct that I am saying the person never received the action of the HS, whereby he changes the nature of the rebel sinner, to have a nature in which he is no longer a slave of his sin nature, but capable, or even bent toward righteousness
This is amazingly ridiculous. James is telling unregenerate people without Christ that they need to have faith working in love - and without the means to do it, Jesus!!! So now, Mondar is Pelagian?? 
This goes to the very beginning, where it appears you think men can do good deeds without Jesus, as you deny the force of John's citation on "without me you can do nothing (good). This appears to contradict the Council of Orange, which I thought you agreed with - vs Pelagianism.
mondar said:
Francis, you can't just pick a text and say "see, regeneration is not in this text, so you are not right." I recognize there are literally thousands of text regeneration is not mentioned. I will even admit regeneration is not mentioned in James 2. But that does not mean you established your point that the man in James 2 lost his salvation.
I never made the case that the men in James lost their salvation... I do not see any evidence that James is speaking to the unregenerate. That is YOUR assumption, which makes no sense.
It is up to you to prove otherwise, since it is widely accepted that the Apostles wrote letters to the communities of the elect, men who were regenerate, baptized, and were being saved for eternal life. Men who were being sanctified, which is only possible upon receiving the Spirit. No scholar that I am aware of claims that ANY NT writing was sent to a pagan community of unregenerate people - nor does the contents give us any clue - quite the reverse, that they WERE regenerate and more was expected...
Now, IF James was writing to unregenerated persons, imploring them to remember their Christian duties, it would seem a VAST contradiction to a number of Biblical ideas, such as "only by the power of the Spirit can I love. Since James is exhorting men to live up to their baptismal promises by commanding deferential treatment of the poor, it follows that they were baptized and were regenerate in the first place. James assumes that it IS possible for his audience!
mondar said:
You cannot prove he was ever saved. You only assume baptismal regeneration in James 2 and then assume he was saved. So then, you are reading your theology into the text. Now you pick a text (Galatians) and ask me to show regeneration in Galatians!
Again, nowhere do we have apostles writing to unregenerate communities. Every one of the communities that received these letters were for the church, a community of believers formed by God through His apostles and the elders appointed. To build up the Body, the Apostles occasionally wrote to THOSE communities, people who were already part of the elect, baptized already, and were EXPECTED to live the life of Christ. This living the life of Christ is NOT POSSIBLE without the assumption that they WERE regenerate!!!
Thus, your attempt to say that the communities were unregenerate leads you to the Pelagian viewpoint - that men can be unregenerate
AND love men, give to the poor, do good deeds, have living faith and pray... This is why your view cannot stand. It is contradictory to Scriptures. James MUST have been speaking to the elect, the saved, the regenerate - albeit, members of the community with a
CURRENLTLY dead faith (it does not follow that their faith was ALWAYS dead... That is your grand presumption…) It does not follow that being lukewarm today meant you were ALWAYS dead to Christ!!!
mondar said:
The issue is the word "us." You are suggesting that when the text says "out from us" it is referring to the leadership of the Church. In my view it is they went out from the Church itself, and the "us" is not referring directly to the leadership.
I understand your view, and I disagree with it, because the context does not support it, nor does Scriptures question whether someone was ever regenerated to begin with that requires such semantics from John. That entire thought process makes our initial salvation UNSURE. The Bible clearly states that we can KNOW.
These heretics were baptized, since John says they came from "us", they were part of the elect community. When a person is baptized, he has received the lather of regeneration, he is united with the dead and resurrection of Christ. There is no questioning whether it happened, Scriptures assert that the Spirit of God came. Now, if one later becomes a hypocritical heretic, that does not mean that the Spirit never came, but that He left, such as in Saul’s case.
Thus, when we see someone who has performed an evil act, we don't conclude "he never was saved to begin with". That throws your whole idea of eternal security out the window. In addition, it means you must be absolutely perfect in word and deed, otherwise, that "temporary sinfulness" can be taken, at the moment, as an indication that you were ALWAYS unregenerate. This world of confusion on whether one WAS saved is NOT the Biblical paradigm.
mondar said:
I think I am correct because of the context of the book. It is not addressed to the leadership of any Church, but to the "little children."
I think you misunderstand how letters were written and how they were disseminated. John didn't upload a letter onto his My Space account so others could read it as they chose. The letter was received by the elders of the community and then READ to the community, proclaimed. The term "little children" can equally be applied to "lower level" elders, as John is obviously not where his audience is located geographically.
mondar said:
So then, to be consistent, and when we see a 3ird person plural, we would have to read it as the "leadership of the Church." Then John is saying the Elders of the Church have their sins paid, and only the leadership has an advocate with the Father?
You accuse me of "jumping around" way above, and now this??? I think the use of different person pronouns are not equally applied across all chapters, as the actual wording of Christ making a statement about the ability of man to do anything without Him... The context will determine the use of the pronoun, not how John used it a chapter ago. It is not inconsistent to apply the word "us" to mean "the entire community" in one chapter, and then "us" to refer to elders in a different one...
Regards
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